


A League of Nations

by Roadstergal



Category: Thunderheart (1992)
Genre: Caring, Doctor/Patient, Domestic, Fish out of Water, Illnesses, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sex, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 03:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16031765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/pseuds/Roadstergal
Summary: Walter might not have the best bedside manner, but it's very effective.





	A League of Nations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecarlysutra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/gifts).



> I was so delighted to see a request for Thunderheart, and when you mentioned Walter playing doctor and domestic fluff between the two of them, I was utterly on board.

Ray gave one last irritated, fitful toss, bouncing slightly on the small guest bed, groaning loudly.  He wanted to throw off the blanket – it was far too hot under it – but it would just be far too cold without it, and wasn’t _that_ a pisser.  He moaned again, even more loudly, a long vocalization of displeasure.  
   
“What?” Walter poked his head in the door, eyes narrowing as he took in Ray's sweaty face.  
   
“Feel like shit,” Ray wheezed.  It had been over a week, now, and he was fucking well sick of it.  Sick of being sick, sick of chucking up everything that went into him, sick of sweating and freezing at the same time, and particularly sick of his body feeling like it was being repeatedly run over with a semi truck.  “What’s that?” he groaned, watching Walter walk into the room, that odd little walk that was impossibly silent and impossibly cocky at the same time.  
   
“Your daily dose of medicine.  Remember me, the medicine man?”  Walter held up a small brown bottle in his gloved hand.  The man had been oddly finicky about Ray’s illness, sticking the man on the smaller bed in the guest room, wearing gloves ever time he tended to Ray, and every day washing the bedclothes, his own clothes, and what clothes he could get Ray to keep on.  Their new washing machine churned almost nonstop.  
   
“Thought you had special medicine to fix this,” Ray groaned.  
   
“Yeah, you white folk have weird sick.  We natives don’t deal with it well.  At least it's nice to see it knocks you down too, though, hoss.”  His face was unreadable as he proffered a spoonful of dark liquid.  
   
“Not nice for me,” Ray grunted.  He took the spoonful in his mouth, and gasped at the vile, bitter taste of the thick syrup as it ran down his throat.  
   
“Don’t you go throwing that up,” Walter warned, holding up a finger.  “It’ll help you feel better if you keep it down.  Besides," he added, his face implacable, "it’s expensive.”  
   
“Thanks,” Ray grumbled, but he breathed carefully, holding steady, until the nausea passed.  “Yeah… that’s… that’s better.”  
   
“Wanna try some water?”  Walter’s dark hair covered his face as he bent down to pick up the glass, still full from the abortive attempt at drinking that morning.

 

Ray moved his chapped lips longingly. He was deathly thirsty - it seemed like a good idea, and Walter’s gloved hand was soothing on the back of Ray’s head as he held up the glass in his other hand.  But the water hit Ray’s stomach like a grenade going off.  “Gotta puke!” he gasped, feeling it well up inside of him.  
   
Walter grabbed him, hustling him out of bed and to the bathroom, one strong hand on the small of his back as he staggered.  Ray fell to his knees in front of the toilet and upchucked the water, then dry heaved for an entertaining few more minutes as Walter stroked his neck.  
   
“I hate this,” Ray finally managed, gasping, shivering weakly, falling back into Walter's supportive arms.  
   
“Ain’t no picnic for me, either, chief,” Walter sighed.

  


* * *

Ray opened his eyes, blinking.  It was early – he could see the dark sky outside of the window, and feel the morning taste in the air before he saw the time on the little bedside clock.  Just after five in the morning.  He felt… different.  He moved slightly, feeling his arms and legs move.  Holy shit, it felt amazing.  No chilly sweating, no delirium, no nausea.  His limbs were weak, but they did what he wanted them to.  
   
He practically leaped out of bed, then stumbled, catching himself.  And of course, Walter’s entry into the room was utterly silent, even though he was in his underpants and bleary-eyed, clearly woken up by the noise Ray had just made.  “What the hell…”  
   
“I’m better!” Ray said, enthusiastically. 

Walter did not look back at him with anything approaching equal enthusiasm.  He blinked blearily, then held up a hand.  “Wait right there, hoss, don’t make a move.”  He disappeared from sight.  
   
Ray frowned, putting a fist into his sore back, trying to settle his thoughts - his confusing memories of the just-broken illness.  This was the first time he had been properly sick in decades – and more specifically and relevantly, it was the first time since he and Walter had been living together.  Their situation was already a bit tense, with Walter having been uprooted, moved to Virginia, away from his homeland, his friends, the job where he could dress and speak the way he was used to.  And now, he had spent almost two weeks tending to a puking, complaining man-baby…  
   
“Take off those clothes,” Walter said, crisply, grabbing the bedclothes with his gloved hands and pulling them into the plastic hamper.  Ray obeyed, slightly confused.  “Now go shower.”  He carried the full hamper out of the room, Ray staggering in his wake, turning off at the bathroom.  
   
All definitely wasn’t well, Ray considered as he stepped into the shower, the warm water cascading over him soothingly.  Maybe… maybe he could request a transfer out West, he pondered, lathering up his chest.  Get stationed a little closer to the Badlands.  Hell, even California, where… people like them were a little more accepted, or where Walter could live where he was comfortable and Ray could visit him when he was off duty.  
   
“You’re awfully quiet,” Walter noted, stepping into the shower, letting the water plaster his long hair to his head and his broad shoulders.  
   
“Just thinking…”  
   
“Leave that to the experts,” Walter told him.  “You have any visions when you were sick?”  
   
“Yeah, I had a vision of you actually touching me again,” Ray grumbled, rubbing the bar of soap over his legs.  
   
“Well, I don’t think there’s anything romantic about lying around and being sick together.  My job was to _not_ get what you got.” There _was_ , however, something romantic about a naked shower once that was done, Ray considered, as Walter put his arms around Ray and kissed him slowly, deeply, lingeringly, just like a man who had been waiting to do that for two weeks.  
   
“I won’t do that again,” Ray mumbled into Walter’s mouth as the man pressed him against the tile, soap-slick fingers working him open gently, firmly, perfectly.  
   
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Walter agreed.  “Now, hold me to this…”  
   
The laundry spun merrily as they got dirty, then clean again.


End file.
